The spikes in my boots were wearing from walking so far on the red hot rocks. I was careful not to touch even the ground with my bare skin. I knew keeping my dna off was the only thing keeping them from hunting me down.

I looked around at the hills surrounding me. Until now I had only been walking across vast plains of tall pink and purple grasses. I found a path leading up the hills. Maybe on higher ground I would be able to find my ship. I’m sure by now though, it has been over grown the purple weeds. Scientists call them tanglewood, for when you step in a patch of tanglewood it latches onto you. It has razor sharpe spines that emit poison that paralyzes you from the neck down. It then consumes your whole body in a matter of hours. No one has ever made it out of the claws of tanglewood.

As I made my way up the hills I noticed something strange. Well, stranger than everything else on Cavel. It was these rocks. They were sitting in blue goo. It shimmered all on its own. But the rocks were dull and cracked. There were many just like it all over the mountain.

That’s when I heard it. A blood curdling screech. I looked behind me and I saw it. A giant, hypnotizing, angry yellow and pink bird. It had a beak sharper than steak knives and a large, black eye, deeper than the ocean back on Earth. It’s feathers were up in a ring around it’s neck. It screeched again and that is when I finally realized. I had stepped in this mother bird’s nest. And now, she had a bounty on my head.

I sprinted up the hills dodging patches of dark, purple tanglewood. I jumped over eggs trying not to touch anything surrounding me. I found one lonesome tree. I had never seen a tree on Cavel before. It was not like any I had seen back on Earth. This tree was short, maybe only three feet tall. It had a black stump with ridges going all the way up to the purple leaves. The angry bird came at me, her neon wings out stretched. I had no choice, I had to climb the tree.

As I made it to the top, something felt off. It was like I had seen this before. Not the bird, but the tree. Where? Where had I seen such a vibrant purple before?

Tanglewood.